HISD mulls whether new chief needs to be classroom vet

Supe search has HISD looking outside box

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, June 7, 2009

The job advertisement for a school superintendent used to be simple: Only career educators who worked their way from classroom to central office need apply.

But these days, an attorney runs the schools in New York City, a former police officer and political aide is at the helm in Chicago, and a corporate executive with a law degree leads the schools in Denver.

A career educator generally has held the top spot in the Houston Independent School District, but the board — eager to speed up reforms — has thrown open the door for some outsiders to apply for the vacancy created by Abelardo Saavedra’s impending departure.

Nontraditional applicants, though, shouldn’t be ignorant of the challenges facing schools. HISD’s job profile notes they ought to have “demonstrable understanding of and involvement with public education.”

“I don’t want to limit ourselves to traditional or nontraditional,” said HISD Trustee Paula Harris. “I want the best person we can get. I do want someone who thinks outside the box.”

Saavedra, who plans to step down after five years at the helm, began his career as a teacher and climbed through the ranks.

“There’s been some very successful nontraditional superintendents, and there’s been some complete failures as well,” Saavedra said. “You can say the same thing about traditional superintendents.”

Urban school boards and big-city mayors typically have turned to nontraditional candidates during crisis times. Bring in a military leader for stability. Hire a business executive to steady the finances. Or find a savvy politician to boost public confidence.

Good leaders, the thinking goes, will hire smart chief academic officers to offset their weaknesses.

A general, then a banker

Seattle Public Schools, which kicked off the nontraditional movement, has seen the good and bad. In 1995, the school board hired John Stanford, a retired Army major general, as its chief. He pushed principals to be like CEOs — giving them more power but holding them more accountable — and made customer service a priority.

For that time, “his charisma, his enthusiasm and his out-of-the-box thinking was what Seattle needed,” said current school board member Cheryl Chow.

When Stanford died of leukemia three years later, the board hired a former investment banker, who resigned after leaving the district $35 million in the hole.

The district’s chief operating officer then took over. The noneducator drew praise from teachers for his campus visits, but like many urban school chiefs didn’t last beyond three years.

“Everybody thought the nontraditional was going to be the savior of all the universe,” said Chow, a former teacher and principal.

HISD’s elected leaders would do well to look beyond “traditional” and “nontraditional” labels and focus on the candidates’ skills, said David Menefee-Libey, professor of politics at Pomona College near Los Angeles.

“I don’t think there’s any evidence that a superintendent is more likely to be effective just because he or she comes from outside the world of education,” he said. “Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen pretty dramatic successes and failures by all kinds of leaders, whether it’s in government or business or education.”

The Houston school board stepped off the well-trodden traditional path in 1994, when it named Rod Paige, whose experience was in higher education, as superintendent.

Open-minded

The current HISD trustees say they’re open-minded about the next superintendent’s résumé, but some feel more strongly than others that it’s time for a change.

“The law training and background provides an excellent preparation for the superintendency,” said Marshall, a teacher by training. “A lot of it stems from the military, which says you have to be focused and have the analytical skills that are able to solve problems.”

But Trustee Manuel Rodriguez Jr. prefers a sitting superintendent — of an urban district with at least 75,000 students — with education credentials. “They’ve had practical knowledge and experience,” he said.

Trustee Natasha Kamrani said she’s open to candidates from all backgrounds but can’t help noticing the positive reforms led by Klein in New York and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C. Rhee ran a nonprofit focused on teachers and taught for a few years through Teach for America, as did Kamrani.

Finding a reward

Talented leaders should be able to use their skills no matter what organization they’re overseeing, said Tim Quinn, of the Broad Center, which runs a training program for aspiring superintendents.

“People who understand performance cultures and know how they work can bring an awful strong shot of change to organizations that have been stymied,” he said.

So why would someone leave a lucrative business career for the tough job of running an urban school district? “Most of them take big pay cuts,” Quinn said, “because they haven’t found something that could be as rewarding and fulfilling as having an impact on the lives of kids.”